


Dragon's Heart

by imaginary_golux



Category: Mulan (1998)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, F/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:34:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22643443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: Mulan wants to save her father, and China, and possibly win honor for her family. She doesn't mind dying if that's what it takes.Surviving the avalanche brings some surprises.Beta by my Best Beloved, Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw.
Relationships: Fa Mulan/Li Shang
Comments: 38
Kudos: 673
Collections: February Ficlet Challenge 2020, Lovely Pieces, The Last Rec List





	Dragon's Heart

Mulan doesn’t _know_. No one knows - not the ancestors, not Mushu, not even Mulan herself, who thinks that the odd warmth curled around her heart, the way she loves to dance outside in rainstorms and feels like she has to protect everyone around her - not just family and friends, not just her village, but all of China if she can - are just quirks, as any human might have. She’s always wanted to be a hero like her father, a brave warrior defending China from the barbarians; maybe it’s a dream more suited to a son than a daughter, but it’s still a perfectly normal dream to _have_.

She doesn’t know, but she cuts her hair and takes her father’s sword and runs away to join the army. She doesn’t know, but she climbs the pole and proves she’s worth training. She doesn’t know, but she improves, she gets _good_ , she becomes maybe not the strongest but the fastest and most accurate and quite possibly cleverest of her fellows.

She doesn’t know, but she marches out to war feeling like she’s doing the right thing, like this is where she’s meant to be, like all her childhood dreams were leading her to this moment.

She doesn’t know, but she looks up at the snow (snow is just rain that got too cold, snow is just _water_ ) and sees how it could fall, how it could _shift_ , and takes the last rocket and runs forward.

The avalanche devours her, as she knew it would, but it devours the Huns first, and Mulan curls into a ball as the snow hits her and instead of fear feels vicious satisfaction at her victory -

Feels something uncurl from around her heart.

Mulan emerges from the snow, shakes out each foot delicately, curls back along herself to make sure every fin on her tail is in place, sits back on her haunches and only then realizes that she is not quite shaped the way she used to be. That the avalanche should have slain her - but the avalanche was only water. _That_ cannot do her harm.

Memories much older than her short life tell her, _This is not the first time you have taken human form, nor the first time you have gone to war for China. Long ago, you bound yourself to the Fa family, and when you are needed, then you are reborn. Eighteen years ago, you breathed your first breath as Fa Mulan, after a century in stone._

_Now you have a choice_.

Mulan looks at the snow, pale and smooth on all sides; looks up at the sky, a clear perfect bowl of blue; looks down at her clawed feet. She hasn’t flown in so long…

But her companions are waiting for her: her horse and her dragon and her cricket, Ling and Chien-Po and Yao and Li Shang.

She flows into the sky as though diving into an ocean, swimming through air far more skillfully than she ever did in water in her human form, and lands a little way from the huddled group of terrified, battered soldiers, who stare up at her and mutter and squeak in awe and fear. It takes a moment’s concentration to slip from this form, sleek and scaled and ancient, into the one she has worn for eighteen years, and in the process, she sort of...forgets something.

There’s a long silence, and then Li Shang steps forward from his troops and offers her his cloak, eyes politely averted to the sky. Mulan puts the cloak on, blushing furiously.

“He’s a _girl_ ,” Ling squeaks.

Yao thwaps Ling across the back of the head. “She’s a _dragon_.”

“Hail, sacred protector of China, mighty and glorious one,” Chi-Fu starts, and Mulan makes a strangled sound.

“Don’t,” she says, and Shang finally looks at her. “I. I didn’t know I was. I just wanted to bring honor to my family, and protect my kingdom.”

Shang looks at her for a long moment, eyes unreadable, and then turns and looks at the vast expanse of snow that covers the Hun army, and says, “Well, I think you definitely did _that_.” He hesitates, and then adds, “What _is_ your name? It can’t be Ping.”

“Fa Mulan,” she says. She has another name, but that’s...that’s a name for another shape, for another _time_.

Li Shang bows to her, like she’s not naked but for his cloak, standing in the snow and not shivering because snow is only water, and water cannot harm a dragon. “An honor to meet you, Fa Mulan.”

“You know me,” Mulan says. This is new - in all her long memories, this is new. She hasn’t ever stuck around before, put on her human form again and had to deal with people who had _seen_ her.

Li Shang swallows hard. “I know Fa Ping,” he says. “I do not know the dragon, Fa Mulan.”

“I’m still _me_ ,” Mulan says a little desperately. “Just...without any more secrets.”

Li Shang considers this. “I am still not sure I know you,” he says at last, “but I would...very much like to _learn_ to know you, Fa Mulan, savior of China, dragon who calls the snows.”

Mulan swallows. “I would like that too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the FFC prompt "Dragon AU."
> 
> Also somewhat inspired by the fan theory I saw a while back that the reason Mushu can't wake the Stone Dragon is that Mulan is, in fact, its reincarnation.

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